Project 10179: 27%

A couple of updates on my efforts to collect the pieces necessary to build the monstrosity that is LEGO's Ultimate Collector Edition of the Millennium Falcon. I now have a total of 1454 pieces, which puts at just over a quarter of the way to my goal. I've started picking up a little speed lately, due to some decent sales on eBay. Part of my goal with this project is to get all the pieces I can as cheaply as possible by buying and selling used Legos via Craigslist and eBay. Also, we're heading into warmer weather, so that means yard sale season! I can usually make a little money this time of year, and there's always the occasional Lego set to be found in the neighborhoods.

In slightly related news, I closed down my BrickLink store. I continue to use BrickLink as a buyer to procure the pieces I need, but selling was just a little too time consuming for me personally. It took forever for me to list any inventory that wasn't a part of a set. I find it much easier to sell bulk lots of Lego on eBay. That probably makes me a bit lazy, but oh well. However, having a BrickLink store for a little over a year gave me a new respect for the BL store owners that have been around for a while. I'm certainly glad those guys are out there and continuing to put inventory up. Thanks to you all!

10179 in POV-Ray

After yesterday's post, I wanted to try out some limits on POV-Ray. I had an LDD file of the UCS Millenium Falcon that I created in Lego Digital Designer (which took a few days of spare time) sitting on my computer. Using the LDD to POV-Ray Converter, I loaded it up and started POV-Ray. I started out with a small picture and messed around with settings, so each of the renders took about 20 minutes. Then I upped the resolution to 800 x 600 and cranked the quality settings all the way up and let POV-Ray work it's magic. 5 hours and 37 minutes later, this is what I got. It actually looks somewhat like a professional photo of a fully assembled Lego set, complete with shadows. I'm really liking this POV-Ray stuff!

Project 10179 : Update

I mentioned earlier that I'm currently slowly collecting pieces to build the ultimate Lego collectors set, 10179 UCS Millenium Falcon. As of right now, I have 486 of 5195. So I still have a long way to go. Since I don't have a lot of money to sink into this, I've been funding my project by buying and selling Lego sets I find at yard sales or on Craigslist (keeping the relevant pieces for myself, of course).
One crucial question to ask yourself if you decide to collect pieces for a project this size is "Do I want to own the set with it's original pieces, or do I just want the building experience?". One of those options is much cheaper than the other. For instance, the original set is almost all gray. Specifically, it's the newer shades of bluish light and dark gray in use right now. However, if I my selection to use some of the old light and gray bricks that are the same types, then I can speed up my collection quite a bit. Also, I think the final result would look more like the original movie version of the Millenium Falcon which was a piece of junk in the story.
Also, some pieces that are used will never see the light of day once built. For instance, this little piece here was yellow in the original set. Since the yellows are relatively rare, they cost more on Bricklink than the black ones do. But those yellow pieces are only to hold the guts of the model together, so you can't see them once it's built. Some very rare pieces like the custom painted satellite dish can set you back $50. However, a plain gray dish that is the same size only costs $1. If you want to own the original instruction booklet, you might have to shell out $100+ on eBay. If you just want to build it, you can download the instructions in pdf form for free from Peeron or even the official Lego site. It just depends on how much you care. As for me, I just want to build it, view it in all it's glory, and feel how heavy the sucker actually is.

Project 10179: The Beginning

Millenium Falcon 10179

I've been slowly building up a random collection of bricks and used/new sets. I don't have a lot of money to spend, but when done right, having a Lego hobby can actually pay for itself in some ways. So in addition to buying used sets and bricks, I've been doing a little selling on side using eBay and BrickLink (there's a link to my BL store in the tabs above).
To add an additional element of fun to my hobby/business, I've started up a little side project which I've dubbed "Project 10179". Lego Star Wars fans will know the number right away as the set ID of the Ultimate Collector's edition of the Millenium Falcon. This is a monster set. At 5,195 pieces it is the second largest set ever put into production by Lego, and definately the biggest Star Wars set. My goal is to eventually buy/collect all the pieces needed to build this monstrosity, but with a net cost of $0.00. A complete set goes for anywhere between $1000 and $2500 on eBay and Amazon, but buying pieces individually or scavenging them from used sets, the cost goes down signigantly.
So why am I doing this? Mostly for fun. I just want to say that I've actually built this thing, kind of like a Lego pilgrimage of sorts. I'm not trying to build a perfect set from all original parts so I can resell it for thousands, so I can cut corners here and there. For instance, the instruction manual (at a whopping 300+ pages) can be downloaded for free as a pdf from the Lego website. So how far into "Project 10179" am I? I currently have 326 pieces. I'm 6% of the way there! Stay tuned for progress updates.